Andrea Dopico Cafarelli

Very young (born in 1991), Andrea Dopico Cafarelli could be just a pretty girl. Instead, she’s a tough girl with a sunny disposition, a person who’s already had plenty of experience. A member of the Venezuelan synchronised swimming team, a student of Public Relations, and then a chef. But she wasn’t happy, she felt like a car going too slow, she felt her road was paved with sweetness, and like Cinderella she felt that she was to change her pumpkin into a sac-à-poche, and became a pastry chef. And what a pastry chef!

Today Andrea is so at ease that Forbes included her in the list of the 30 most influential under 30s in Europe together with designers, chefs, entrepreneurs, painters. The suitcase that changed her life was the one she made to go to Vancouver, Canada, to study at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. Being a hard worker, she ended top of her class and went to display her talent in Spain, first in Madrid, then in the vertiginous Barcelona, where there’s one of the most furious culinary scenes in the world.

The great call came from luxury hotel chain Mandarin Oriental, where they hired her as pastry chef for the two-starred restaurant Moments inside their hotel on Passeig de Gracia, more or less in front of Casa Batllò, one of the masterpieces of visionary Antoni Gaudì. And she let the spirit of the place and of people like Carme Ruscalleda - the woman chef with the highest number of stars in her life, seven - inspire her.

Andrea pursues her idea of creole pastry making, covering the wild flavours of Venezuela with the frills required by the standards of a two-starred restaurant. In the postres one can find her roots, her feelings, her nostalgia, the aroma of the Amazon Forest distilled in a n°5 perfume of which you should spray a few drops. In her future, a return to her homeland: «If I’ll be able to take all I’ve learnt here and apply it to teach in Venezuela, I’ll be the happiest person in the world».